30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Sunday, December 31, 2017

I Still Love Them

Two weeks ago, the Green Bay Packers were eliminated from playoff contention. A few hours ago, the Seattle Seahawks joined them. This is the first time in nine seasons that both of my football teams will be watching the entire postseason as spectators.In hindsight... it was a pretty solid run and in terms of power rankings, both of these teams easily trump the two baseball teams I actively root for.To put things into perspective, during the past nine seasons, each football team has won a Super Bowl and the Hawks were potentially one Marshawn Lynch handoff from winning another. The Green Bay Packers won the NFC Northfive times and made the playoffs eight consecutive years. The Seattle Seahawks won the NFC Westfour times, made the playoffs six times, and earned trips to back to backSuper Bowls.The Oakland Athletics had a decent team a few years back when they won the AL West in 2012 and 2013. The following year they had the best record in baseball heading into August, yet somehow managed to have an epic meltdown that resulted in a 12thinning loss to the Kansas City Royals in the AL Wild Cardgame. They have finished in last place in the AL West ever since.Then there are my belovedSan Diego Padres, who are by far the worst team I cheer for in regards to team success. Over the last nine seasons, they have had exactly one winning season with zero playoff appearances. In fact the last time they made the postseason was 2006 when Jake Peavy was still their staff ace, Trevor Hoffman was their closer, and Mike Piazza was their starting catcher. Mike Piazza.But that's okay. I still love them. And Rod over at Padrographs gave me almost 200 reasons to continue being a loyal San Diego Padres fan.

Let's kick things off with a stadium giveaway set that was handed out to fans who purchased special tickets to the August 19thgame versus the Washington Nationals. Jack McKeon was the general manager for the San Diego Padres during the 80's when the franchise made their first World Series appearance back in 1984. That day the San Diego Padres inducted him into their hall of fame.

The set's checklist seems to be centered around the guys who played on the Padres during the Trader Jack ERA.

I really like the design the Padres decided to go with. It's simple and features the mid to late 80's brown and orange color scheme. The only downside is that there's no production year printed anywhere on the card, so collectors who stumble across singles in the future might have difficulty determining what they're holding.Okay... we've gotta move on. There's a lot to cover. In addition to the set, Rod sent a huge stack of Padres that included inserts, autographs, rookie cards, base cards, and buybacks:

Since Rod is an autograph connoisseur, I figured I'd start with those first:

James Needy (left) is a former San Diego Padres prospect who is now with the Miami Marlins. The Matt Szczur is a custom card that Rodproduced and had signed back in September. You can read about his TTMexperiencehere. And Ian Kennedystarted 73 games for the Padres a few years back.In addition to these three autographs, he also sent me this:

2017 Topps Fire Autographs Purple #FAHR

Renfroe broke the San Diego Padresrookie home run record previously set by Nate Colbert back in 1969. Only Wil Myers hit more home runs for the Padreslast season. Unfortunately, Renfroe'sbatting average and on base percentage were pretty low. He'll need to work on that if he hopes to become the Padres'future#3 or #4hitter.One of my favorite cards in the stack was this buyback of Bruce Bochy:

2006 Topps #288

Bochy is the last Padres' manager to take the team to the playoffs. He left the team after the 2006season to manage the San Francisco Giants. Since that time, he's won three World Series titles with them. But look how young he looked when he was with the Padres. He's hella aged in San Francisco.Rod also sent me these other buybacks:

There were also a ton of rookie cards and inserts. If I want to publish this post before the New Year, I'll have to settle for showing off a few of my faves:

2017 Topps Update All-Rookie Cup RC Reprints #43

I always enjoy adding a new Ozzie Smith card to my binder... especially when he's wearing the famousBrown and Gold.

2017 Topps Update #US32

Zippy doesn't have the market cornered on Torrensrookie cards. Thanks to Rod, I finally have a copy for my collection.And last, but not least, a mystery card:

2016 Falcon #349

Jose Rondon isn't the mystery. He's a Venezuelanshortstop who spent most of 2017 in San Antonio (AA) and El Paso (AAA). The mystery is the card itself. Anyone ever heard of Falcontrading cards? It looks like a Venezuelantrading card from 2016, but contains official MLB logos. Is this an officially licensed trading card or a really nice custom? Was it distributed in packs? Sets? Any help would be appreciated.

Rod also hooked me up with a small stack of A'scards too. There's a sweet lookingReggie and a few rookie cards of the Athletics'top prospect: Franklin Barreto.Thank youRod! I'll try to scrape up some San Diego Padres for your collection. I think I might have a few autographs laying around. Hopefully they'll fit into it somewhere.As for the Padres... they'll forever be my National Leagueteam. I mean... somebody has to stick around and love them, right?

9 comments:

As a Nets fan, I sympathize. The running joke for years now in making fun of a bad team is "they're even worse than the Nets!". Missing the playoffs isn't all bad...you can get good guys for the future that way. Unless you trade away every draft pick from 2013-2019...which the Nets actually did.

I've seen a few of those Falcon cards before online. I think they were all associated with Winter League teams. From a quick eBay search it looks like they done a few to commemorate milestones for current MLB players of Venezuelan descent.

Thanks for the link. There is one card missing from the Trader Jack set and that is Bip Roberts, he went into the Bip Roberts collection curated by myself and Punk Rock Paint. Storm Davis appears in the Trader Jack in an Orioles uniform, don't know why they couldn't come up with one in a Padres uniform.

The Venzuelan card comes from a dealer on ebay, they often have cards of Padres signed that I haven't seen anywhere else. I probably have 5 or six of them.

Never watched TNA, since it was on a station not in my cable package. Would't mind cards of guys that were in or are now in WWE.

About Me

I've been collecting cardboard off and on since the early 80's. I'm presently collecting. But who knows what the future holds in store for me.
One thing is for certain... I'll have my blog to help relive some of my favorite hobby moments.